When did the Bundestag actually pass the last major law? The traffic light coalition gives the feeling of being more stuck than deciding. Just one keyword: basic child protection.
It almost went a week in the Bundestag without a single legislative resolution. Almost shortly before closing time, the traffic light coalition put several topics on the agenda for the final vote. The week before Easter was even worse. The only legal decision: the implementation of an EU regulation from Brussels.
Has the self-proclaimed progress coalition become a standstill coalition around a year and a half before the next federal election? At least that’s what the opposition Union likes to accuse the traffic light of. Or have the SPD, Greens and FDP simply worked through the big chunks – and is it more of a communication problem than a hard work problem?
Scholz: “I think 90 percent is possible”
In any case, for Chancellor Olaf Scholz the matter is clear: most of his traffic light coalition agreement from 2021 has been implemented. “If you take the coalition agreement and what we have written down, we would certainly be closer to 80, 90 percent,” said the SPD Chancellor at the VRM publishing group in Mainz at the beginning of the week. “We probably won’t reach 100,” he says – that would also be very unusual for a federal government. “But I think it is possible that we end up at 90 percent despite a fairly ambitious program for a good future for Germany,” said Scholz.
It would be a damn good result – at least compared to previous governments. According to an evaluation by the Bertelsmann Foundation, Angela Merkel’s grand coalition implemented around 73 percent of its promises completely and a further 5 percent partially between 2018 and 2021. From 2013 to 2018, the GroKo only managed 64 percent of the coalition agreement commitments completely and 15 percent partially. More than a fifth of the promises remained unfulfilled.
According to the Bertelsmann Foundation, the traffic light coalition had already implemented or initiated almost two thirds (64 percent) of its agreements at halftime. So is everything going great for the SPD, Greens and FDP? Hardly any observer of Berlin politics would answer that with a yes. The fundamental ideological gaps that open up between the three unequal partners almost everywhere beyond social policy are too great.
Further disagreement regarding basic child welfare
Keyword: basic child security, one of the prestige projects from the traffic light coalition agreement. Even before the cabinet decision, there was a lot of back and forth – back then it was about money. Now, months later, a bill is in parliament, but Family Minister Lisa Paus’s (Greens) personnel expectations are causing trouble, especially between her Greens and the FDP. Implementation on January 1, 2025? More than questionable.
On Tuesday, the coalition added last-minute legislative resolutions to the agenda for this week’s Bundestag session: among other things, the Energy Industry Act and the Self-Determination Act, which is intended to make it easier for transgender people to change their gender entry and first name. But things are going slowly for many large projects.
Numerous projects are waiting to be implemented
There have been negotiations about a solar package and a reform of the climate protection law for months. The FDP has blocked restrictions on advertising unhealthier food to children. The planned facilitation of family reunification for refugees with limited protection status is also pending. Behind the scenes we hear that this project has been put on hold for now because the municipalities already have their hands full with the care and integration of Ukraine war refugees and asylum seekers.
The Greens and SPD are upset that Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) has long made no move to tighten tenancy law. His party does not believe that this would solve the tense situation on the housing market in some metropolitan areas. He has now agreed to extend the rent control, which would otherwise expire at the end of 2025, until 2029. However, from the perspective of the coalition partners, this is not enough to protect tenants from excessive rents.
The agreed collective bargaining compliance law from Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) is still a long time coming. According to a proposal from last spring, only employers who pay their employees according to standard wages should receive larger orders from the federal government. The employers, on the other hand, were up in arms.
The traffic light government got stuck with the states, for example, with a major reform to reorganize hospitals – and with the so-called Digital Pact 2.0. It’s about the digitalization of schools. Traffic lights and states argue about who provides how much money. The coalition increased the Bafög once and also launched study start-up assistance for students from poorer families. However, the fundamental reform agreed in the coalition agreement has not yet taken place. It is also completely unclear whether the Road Traffic Act will be reformed during this legislative period. It should give cities and municipalities more leeway, for example to set up bus lanes and 30 km/h zones, but this was stopped by the Federal Council.
Crisis management and election campaign
In total, the traffic light parties made 453 promises on 141 pages in their coalition agreement on December 8, 2021. It took on a lot, significantly more than the previous government with less than 300 projects. Due to the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis and inflation, the mountain of work grew even larger: crisis management suddenly took priority.
Now the government doesn’t have much time left to get new projects started. The SPD, Greens and FDP could actually still pass laws until the 2025 summer break. But it sometimes takes months for a draft to go through the coordination of the departments, through the cabinet, then through the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. At the same time, the traffic light parties are actually already in the election campaign: first for the European elections in June, then for the state elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg in September. The course for the federal election must also be set by the end of the year: It is not only important to nominate top candidates, but also to develop programs. The hot election campaign phase usually begins in early summer.
Until then, the traffic light parties will try to polish up their reputation. Already halfway through the coalition, it was said that the government was actually delivering better than it was publicly perceived. But voters often remember not what went smoothly and was quickly resolved, but where the partners got stuck – where compromises were made that in the end no one could sell as a success because every conceivable solution had previously been declared impossible. Addressing this now seems more urgent than the last percentage points of the coalition agreement.